George Clooney-Tina Fey plot thickens: 'downright dirty' payback

By By Nardine Saad

Feb 05, 2014 | 4:43 PM

Matt Damon and George Clooney of the cast of "The Monuments Men" answer questions from fans during a SiriusXM "Town Hall" special on SiriusXM's Entertainment Weekly Radio channel at SiriusXM Studio in New York City. (Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for SiriusXM)

Clooney, whose "Gravity" role played nicely into their joke about him rarely dating women his own age, put the women on notice last month following the memorable jape. More recently, he benevolently derided the hosts with stationery that he had made to impersonate Damon.

Advertisement

>

"I've already started the ball rolling. I used Matt, sorry," Clooney said in a town-hall-style interview for Entertainment Weekly Radio with his "Monuments Men" costars. The interview will air on Friday.

It turns out that Clooney, 52, obtained stationery in Damon's name and sent a letter to Fey as his costar calling them out for the jokes they also made about Damon during the hosting gig. The women, who have long-running rapport with Damon, infamously dubbed him a "garbage" man among the A-listers in attendance. (Incidentally, Clooney did not attend this year's award show.)

"I send her a letter going, 'Dear Tina, Listen..." Clooney said, laughing. "It's 'from' Matt and it says, 'Look, it sounds hypocritical because I laughed about jokes about George and Leo, but that's sort of what people think about them.... But when you call me a garbage man it just seems like low-hanging fruit. It seems like an easy joke. I don't want an apology or anything else. I just want you to know that my kid now calls me 'the garbage man.'"

Following the letter, Damon received an enormous delivery of two fruit baskets last week, with each one bearing a letter signed from Fey and Poehler.

Damon, 43, ever the innocent bystander, recalled the first letter -- marked "1" -- as a long apology letter, saying the women said, "I thought you of all people could take a joke and listen we're both really sorry."

According to Damon, the second letter said, "If by chance you didn't send us that letter and it was from George Clooney, please let him know that you've got to get up a little earlier in the day to fool a couple of girls like this. We're grown-ass comedians."

With that, they told Clooney to step up his game, and he happily obliged.

"She said step it up," Clooney said, "That's the appetizer and what's coming now, the main course, is pretty brutal."

The "main course," so to speak, has already gotten underway, though Clooney didn't elaborate on what the prank will consist of.

"This one is one that I have it in my hotel room set -- taking pictures and stuff -- I'm sitting there like, 'If I do this, this is downright dirty.' I have to think if I'm actually going to do it or not," he said and laughed.